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thrash · 11-25-2020, 06:51 AM

I've had a couple of naming conventions.

In one setting, I decided that the IAU (or its successor) would still have some influence over astrographic names. Individual worlds are named after gods, goddesses, or divine monsters -- no "Smade's Planet" here. In order to get a list of what might be considered acceptable, I downloaded a list of approved names for astrogeographic features from the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and scrubbed it for mythological (vs. historical) names. The list came to 1,467 names, with a brief description of where they come from and what they refer to. I split up the list (somewhat arbitrarily) into cultural groups (Assyrio-Babylonian, Australian, Aztec, etc.) so that different political entities could have consistent themes. I took the descriptions at face value and used them to pick appropriate names, based on the type of planet, For example, in the Baltic group, a world that killed three survey parties before the fourth figured out why might be named "Aziren," after the "Estonian spirit of death." The final step, which I never completed, was to poll Google for how common each name is and preferentially use them in that order.

In another setting, I needed far more names than this would provide -- multiple thousands, to start. I decided that the UN agency in charge of naming would officially use codes consisting of five alpha-numeric characters. Rather than just assign them starting with 00001 or AAAAA, however, they would allow the applicant to request a code. This puts a premium on codes that are at least pronounceable -- much like intersections on IFR airways, if you're familiar. Again, I leaned on the IAU for what might be acceptable (vs., e.g., FARTS). I took the list of named asteroids and scrubbed them for those that are five characters long. That netted me 2,728 names. I added a list of English words that are five letters long but uncommon -- i.e., they don't show up in a standard spell-check dictionary and so get underlined in text -- for an additional 3,980.

I also tried a list of names taken from rail- and subway stations world-wide, for a setting with a strong "subway map" flavor of hyperspace travel. I wanted an international, multi-lingual framework to reflect the makeup of the setting. Unfortunately, what I discovered is that when my players couldn't pronounce the names at first glance (e.g., Boixeres, Caoying, Nizhegorod) they would hang a nick-name on the world and ignore the official name thereafter. This led me to consider English phonotactics -- the rules that make some nonsense words sound like plausible English rather than garbage.

11-25-2020, 06:51 AM	#8
thrash Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: traveller	Re: How do you name planets? I've had a couple of naming conventions. In one setting, I decided that the IAU (or its successor) would still have some influence over astrographic names. Individual worlds are named after gods, goddesses, or divine monsters -- no "Smade's Planet" here. In order to get a list of what might be considered acceptable, I downloaded a list of approved names for astrogeographic features from the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and scrubbed it for mythological (vs. historical) names. The list came to 1,467 names, with a brief description of where they come from and what they refer to. I split up the list (somewhat arbitrarily) into cultural groups (Assyrio-Babylonian, Australian, Aztec, etc.) so that different political entities could have consistent themes. I took the descriptions at face value and used them to pick appropriate names, based on the type of planet, For example, in the Baltic group, a world that killed three survey parties before the fourth figured out why might be named "Aziren," after the "Estonian spirit of death." The final step, which I never completed, was to poll Google for how common each name is and preferentially use them in that order. In another setting, I needed far more names than this would provide -- multiple thousands, to start. I decided that the UN agency in charge of naming would officially use codes consisting of five alpha-numeric characters. Rather than just assign them starting with 00001 or AAAAA, however, they would allow the applicant to request a code. This puts a premium on codes that are at least pronounceable -- much like intersections on IFR airways, if you're familiar. Again, I leaned on the IAU for what might be acceptable (vs., e.g., FARTS). I took the list of named asteroids and scrubbed them for those that are five characters long. That netted me 2,728 names. I added a list of English words that are five letters long but uncommon -- i.e., they don't show up in a standard spell-check dictionary and so get underlined in text -- for an additional 3,980. I also tried a list of names taken from rail- and subway stations world-wide, for a setting with a strong "subway map" flavor of hyperspace travel. I wanted an international, multi-lingual framework to reflect the makeup of the setting. Unfortunately, what I discovered is that when my players couldn't pronounce the names at first glance (e.g., Boixeres, Caoying, Nizhegorod) they would hang a nick-name on the world and ignore the official name thereafter. This led me to consider English phonotactics -- the rules that make some nonsense words sound like plausible English rather than garbage.